The business venture of Connected4Life would provide the consumers with convenient web features for people to get organized and to maintain a healthy network for as long as they wanted- such as automatic information update, “gone cold” network alert, and a creative tool to get re-connected with lost networks. Product Category The business proposition of the Connect4Life would come under the social networking industry. The social networking industry is basically an online networking industry which promotes interactions, and communication amongst people on the internet for the purpose of social networking.

This industry has been gaining power for the past few years especially since 2002. The evolution of the industry started when it was established through online chat forums hosted by MSN, Yahoo and Google. However other businesses took this one step further and Orkut. com was launched which was a community of people who were interacting socially and exchanging messages, pictures, themes and preferences with others online. This option allowed the users to have a personal storage space and a personal web page as their home.

This created the new form of the social network industry and players like MySpace, Facebook and Classmate. com stared commence their operations in this business. Currently the company which is offering the most diverse form of products and services to the consumers is Facebook followed closely by MySpace. The features of the business under this category is the provision of storage space, blogging facility, picture album display options, music sharing, video sharing, messaging, introduction to new evolving networks, and event management etc.

The list is endless however the basic point of all the facilities is to promote interaction amongst the community members and enable file sharing. Key Differences between all of the other Social Networking Firms The social network firms that have been identified till as yet have some form of limiting factor for the scope of their operations. This limiting factor comes in the form of storage space, facilities provided, access to information, restricted functionalities etc. However the Connected4Life option would allow the users to be able to have unrestricted functionality and access.

The application available to them would be unparalleled by the existing firms, they would be evolutionary in nature, keeping the system open source,. As a result the new application and options would be developed and added to the Connected4Life when the market would be in need of these options. The main aim of Connected4Life is to make the option a final resting place for people to share that information to others. It would be proving the users with a specific web address as is the characteristic of fcebook. com and My Space.

The product and service offering would strongly resemble Facebook however the target market that is going to be focused by Connected4Life is going to be slightly different. Segmentation The segmentation of the target market for the Connected4Life social networking option will be based on the following factors: Amount of time available: The amount of time that they have available and that they are willing to spend online in social networking activities would determine the segments. If the person has a small amount of time available then he/ she will want to use the Connected4Life option.

This would be because the person would already be struggling with time and efficiency. The Connected4Life option would provide them with the highest levels of efficiency with the lowest amount of time investment required for the social networking activity. People who would be having a medium amount of time would also be interested in using the Connected4Lifeoption as by employing this option the person would be able to make use their extra time to work on things that are more important.

People who have a large amount of time will not be interested in this potion and because they will be having too much time to spend on the “Show-off” factors (Myspace) The value of convenient and healthy network: The requirement of the target market in terms of a healthy and a convenient network will also determine the segments of the market for the Connected4Life. People who would be having a low value for a healthy network and convenience would not be interested in this option.

However people who would be having a moderate or a high value of a healthy and convenient social network would be interested in this product and would form a segment of the market for Connected4Life. Age Group: The segmentation of the market according to the age group determines that the Gen X would Value the service of connected4life because they have been worked for awhile and they have learned the importance of networking. The Gen Y will also be interesting in the Connected4Life as most of them would just have started working. The Gen Z however would not be interested as the majority of such group does not know the importance of Network.

The Baby boomers on the other hand would be recommended for using Connected4Life because they are “been there done that” type of users, they would want the usefulness of this feature. Current Social Networking Sites Users: The users that have just started would prefer using the Connected4Life option as it would be convenient. The users who have been using such networks for a while would start to understand the usefulness of Connected4Life and the users who have starting to get bored would use the tools and features Connected4Life provided for them to keep their network going with minimum effort.

Showing Off vs. Convenient Network: Those users whose ultimate aim is effectiveness would choose Connected4Life, while those who chose the feeling of show-off wouldn’t choose Connected4Life, instead, they would chose social networking sites such as MySpace. The mixed segments would take the form of 1. Low: (Age + Value of an effective network) + High: (Amount of free time), they would not prefer Connected4Life 2. Moderate: (Age + Value of an effective network + Amount of free time), they would consider Connected4Life 3.

High: (Age + Value of an effective network) + Low: (Amount of free time), they would be most likely Consider Connected4Life Targeting Strategy As there already does exist a variety of social networking options on the internet, the competition for a new entrant is going to be intense. Moreover the evolution of the social networking options and their popularity have established high standards of performance and high levels of expectancy form new entrants in the social networking industry. As a result the Connected4Life will have to be different and unique in its product and service proposition.

The Connected4Life therefore is going to be targeting a different niche of the market. The Connected4Life social networking option would targeted as an optimal solution and networking service for people who have little or very limited time available for networking ion the internet. They are interested in networking on the internet but using the current options available they are spending more time on loading and loading pages and application and updating their profiles was compared to actually networking through the online medium.

The target market for the Connected4Life option would consist of people who value the importance of a healthy network. This would be a high priority for them, as the target market would be interested in actually networking with an objective and for a socially profitable reason,. They would not be indulging in the Connected4Life as a pass time for the them available to them. Aside from this the target market for the Connected4Life option would not include people who are currently in their teens or in the college.

The network will be focused towards people who are wither young entrants into the corporate community or are over the age of college students i. e. 22 years and plus. Moreover the networking option provided by Connected4Life would also be suitable and targeted towards those users who have at one point of their lives used a social networking option but then got tired and bored of their current network. Positioning Strategy The business venture of Connected4Life would be different in its positioning form the already existent social networking options available on the internet.

The Connected4Life will be positioned as a convenient, useful and efficient system. The system is not going to be having a lot of multimedia sharing options. Instead the products and service offering is gaping to be more focuses on having time for the consumers. This is because it has been seen that the diverse social networking options like Facebook and MySpace are highly popular amongst the users, however sue to the number of complex application available on them and the amount of graphics set up, the processing time of the applications and the uploading of data is very slow.

The loading of the pages is also comparatively slower than other networking options making them highly inefficient. The users who are in need of social networking on the other hand do not have much time available to spend on loading applications and WebPages. As a result this option would be stressed as a highly efficient and time saving options which enable the consumers to interact online without the hassles of loading highly graphic and heavy WebPages and application or deal with the delays in the loading and updating of their websites/ blogs and web pages.

The positioning statement that is developed for Connected4Life is as follows: “Not for show-off (not much multimedia sharing features), but useful, convenient, and efficient, which saves the users time rather than those current social networking sites that sucks a person’s time in. ” Conclusion The product and service offering provided by Connected4Life is going to be unique in nature. However it is possible that initially the service would be slightly unattractive to look at and it may not get favorable response, but this has been the characteristics of most of the social network options online.

They need time to evolve and attract consumers. Moreover the customers and users also tend to be hesitant in shifting form an old and established social networking service to a brand new one. However the Connected4Life will be made attractive through the evolution of the options and the fresh content. Moreover the proposition that minimum amount of time needs to be spent on updating and maintaining the social profile on the Connected4Life option would be highly attractive to the customers who are already fighting for time in their busy lives.